Historisk Tidskrift. Utgiven av Svenska historiska föreningen
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Historisk tidskrift 131:1 • 2011

Innehåll (Contents) 2011:1

Uppsatser (Articles)

I fru Grönhagens garderob fanns allt som hörde damtoaletten till, eller? Källjämförelser belyser befolkningshistoriska materials underrapportering av kvinnors arbete och försörjning i Sundsvall 1870–1890

Av Lotta Vikström

 

Fulltext (pdf)

Summary

Estimating the under-enumeration of women’s work in past population registers: results from combining and comparing sources from Sundsvall, Sweden, 1870–1890

The assumption that workers were male breadwinners has affected the way historical data have been collected and researched in the past. Access to a unique set of sources (local newspapers, business taxation registers, trade directories and patient records) that are linked to parish registers digitized by the Demographic Data Base, Umeå University, Sweden, makes it possible to identify the gender bias of past population registers resulting from their under-reporting of women’s work. Sundsvall’s parish registers report occupational data only for every third woman. About 70 percent of a sample of 290 women held multiple occupations ranging from small-scale business to domestic service according to the abovementioned sources.

These findings offer a more heterogeneous and a less dependent picture of women’s occupational possibilities in the past than that provided by population registers. It is argued that women gained the opportunity to represent themselves and their skills by advertising in the newspapers and trade directories, whereas the parish registers subsumed them under the head of the household. Nonetheless, this study shows that it is wrong to neglect population registers as these uncover women’s demographic situation and family context. To further identify women’s experiences and position in history, we must increasingly combine sources that show both women’s actual work and their family situation. Today’s growing access to digitized materials and databases comprising different types of sources is key to the future research of this issue.

Keywords

digitized data, newspapers, 19th century, parish registers, Sweden, under-registration, women, women’s work